Gender and race still determine salaries at American universities – women association
Women account for just 24 per cent of all top income earners at US universities, according to a study from the Eos Foundation. The study, conducted in association with the Washington DC-based American Association of University Women, found that highly compensated women are especially scarce at the tenured and tenure-track...
Like Yellow Fever certificate before it, it’ll soon be a must to get a Covid passport
Sometime soon, you might arrive at an airport or a stadium or a restaurant, open an app or flash a card, and be admitted to a place or experience that was denied you during the pandemic. You will have just deployed a vaccine passport, a certification of either vaccination status...
Most scientists believe Covid spread from animals, some say it’s lab-engineered
After the breakout of coronavirus in Wuhan city, Chinese researchers collected nearly 1,000 samples from the Huanan market in early 2020, swabbing doors, rubbish bins, toilets, stalls that sold vegetables and animals, stray cats and mice. The majority of the samples that tested positive were from stalls that sold seafood,...
WHO report into Covid pandemic origins zeroes in on animal markets, not lab
Markets that sold animals – some dead, some alive – in December 2019 have emerged as a probable source of the coronavirus pandemic in a major investigation organised by the World Health Organization (WHO). That investigation winnowed out alternative hypotheses on when and where the pandemic arose, concluding that the...
Kenya’s maritime, railway hubs now likely nodes and magnets for Chinese illicit trade
Kenya is the focal point in Africa for China’s New Silk Road project that is expected to create terrestrial and maritime trade and commerce networks that link African, European and Asian countries. And danger looms, experts warn. From sounding initially as grandiose and unachievable when it was mooted nearly a...
Gifted researchers worry about their outstanding work at UK universities
A university in the United Kingdom is facing criticism over the responsible use of research metrics after it used information about scientists’ research income and publication records to identify dozens of jobs that are ‘at risk’. Critics say that using metrics in such a decision is inappropriate because they tend...
How sex creates variation: Mix and match that results in the next generation
Some lizard species do without males altogether. Scientists are studying these all-female species to see what they might reveal about the pros and cons of sex. But asexual reproduction comes with its own problems, as evolutionary biologist Sonal Singhal of California State University, Dominguez Hills, and her colleagues describe in...
Biologists’ sex puzzle: You have to find a mate and it takes resources to get one
Many organisms dedicate their entire adult lives to finding a mate and producing offspring. The rhythms of sex govern the actions and choices of so many animals that it seems to be a rule of biology: Sex is important. But life’s multifariousness yields some exceptions. A small percentage of animals...
New report accuses Tanzania police, courts of complicity in wildlife crimes
In late November 2020, a judgment was made in an appeal case in the High Court of Tanzania at Mtwara, a small port city near the Mozambique border. The appeal was filed by Tanzania’s Director of Public Prosecutions against Mateso Kasian (also known as ‘Chupi’ which means ‘underwear’ in Kiswahili),...
Work in progress: Psychologists grapple with how to detect a ‘true lie’
Police thought that 17-year-old Marty Tankleff seemed too calm after finding his mother stabbed to death and his father mortally bludgeoned in the family’s sprawling Long Island home. Authorities didn’t believe his claims of innocence and he spent 17 years in prison for the murders. Yet in another case, detectives...
